@whatisyourquest Have you read Frank Bruni’s book? I have. He is against college ranking lists, such as USNWR. He attended UNC and Columbia. And according to you, this makes him a hypocrite? Please explain, that makes no sense. (unless I missed the fact that he chose to attend those schools by blindly following a ranked list of colleges…)
@NJEngineer3 When you yourself have degrees from elite universities (UNC Chapel Hill, undergraduate degree and Columbia, graduate degree), and advance through an organization (New York Times) that cultivates staff with elite academic pedigrees… then, heck yeah, you have no right to hector anxious students and parents about the purported nugatory value of a degree from an elite university.
If Bruni himself had a “I grew up poor in Appalachia, went to UWV, and through gumption ended up as an editorialist at the New York Times” life story, then he might have a leg to stand on… There are indeed people in America that have that kind of life story. I would gladly read biographies written by those folks and listen to their advice. To me, Bruni’s meme is: “do as I say, not as I do.”
https://againstclassbigotry.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2015/03/17/new-york-times-hypocrisy-on-college-admissions/
“These are the columnists of The New York Times. The first school listed is the columnist’s undergraduate institution. If a second is listed, it is the one from which the columnist received a graduate or professional degree.”
Charles M. Blow – Grambling
David Brooks- University of Chicago
Frank Bruni – UNC at Chapel Hill, Columbia
Roger Cohen – Oxford
Gail Collins – Marquette, University of Massachusetts
Ross Douthat – Harvard
Maureen Dowd – Catholic University (D.C.)
Thomas L. Friedman – Brandeis, Oxford
Nicholas Kristof – Harvard, Oxford
Paul Krugman – Yale, MIT
Joe Nocera – Boston University
“Seven out of 11 Times columnists have at least one degree from either an Ivy League university, Oxford, or the University of Chicago. Those institutions make up a tiny percentage of U.S. collegians, but the overwhelming majority of NYT columnists.”
^ So, are you saying, these schools are elite because USNews says they are or are they elite because everyone who graduates from one of them works for someplace like the NYTimes? If it’s the latter then there should be more outcomes oriented criteria in the ranking system it uses. If it’s the former, then you’ve essentially proven Frank Bruni’s point which is that USNews is creating the very thing it’s supposed to be measuring. Which is it?
I’m saying that the USNWR and other ranking systems provide a relative measure of the aptitude of the admitted students and of the university’s resources and academic strengths. I’m saying that HS students and their parents are consumers and have the right to investigate the best choices for their money; rankings are one tool in that endeavor. I’m saying that many companies believe that graduates from these highly-ranked universities are best prepared to be productive employees. I’m saying that there is a network of graduates from these universities and that these connections often matter in one’s career. I’m saying that it’s disingenuous for Frank Bruni, who attended elite universities and works at a company that favors graduates from elite universities, to claim that it doesn’t matter where you go to college.
Bam!
“Those institutions make up a tiny percentage of U.S. collegians, but the overwhelming majority of NYT columnists."
This is a true statement, but very misleading. I think we would all agree that to become a NYT columnist, you have to very qualified (extremely intelligent, an excellent work history, and of course, a love of writing). Unfortunately, many “U.S. collegians” do not possess all of the above qualities. So you need to exclude all of those, in order to have a valid comparison.
I think that list of 11 columnists proves Mr. Bruni’s point – 4 of them did not attend an “elite college” (whatever that means!)
Just this weekend I had a discussion with the HR manager of a software company. She does not even look at the college name on the resume. We have all read the numerous true stories of MIT grads working side-by-side with “no-name U.” grads, earning the same salary.
@whatisyourquest wrote
That’s a whole lot of “beliefs”. Where’s your data?
That’s silly, There is nothing disingenuous about Bruni stating something that he has studied and believes to be correct, regardless of where he went to college. You are assuming either 1) he can’t possibly be objective, or 2) he’s lying, but you have no evidence of either of those things. There is nothing superior (or inferior) about someone that used their bootstraps to climb out of Appalachia than means that they are the only ones who have moral or intellectual standing to study this particular subject.
I say this as someone who generally disagrees with Bruni and thinks that the elite schools do provide a better education and much better options after graduation than other colleges.
^I think there’s been a little bit of straw tossed into Bruni’s argument. I don’t recall him saying that elite colleges don’t matter. Studies have shown that for students from low SES backgrounds they can make a great deal of difference. I think he’s only saying that USNews does a poor job of justifying why one should be ranked above another. The usual argument supporting USNews nearly always comes back to some variant of, “it supports what I already believe, therefore, it must be reliable.”